Veterans must be a priority

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said by the end of next year virtually all combat troops in Afghanistan will be home.

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Posted Feb. 17, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Posted Feb. 17, 2013 at 12:01 AM

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In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama said by the end of next year virtually all combat troops in Afghanistan will be home.

Although that will end a decade of war, it doesn't mean the fight is over for the thousands of men and women who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and the conflicts involving this nation dating at least as far back as World War II.

We made promises to these veterans; it's time we fulfilled them.

Making good on our promises includes building a much-needed Veterans Administration medical facility at French Camp. It would serve not just the estimated 38,000 veterans living in San Joaquin County but also tens of thousands of vets up and down the Valley.

When it's built - if it's ever built - it will mean medical and mental health services will be available without our vets having to travel to Palo Alto.

The problem is money. None has been allocated for the $368 million, 300,000-square-foot facility divided equally between a 120-bed nursing home and an outpatient clinic.

To be sure, that's a lot of money, but it represents only about one-third the cost of one B-2 stealth bomber. For that matter, the clinic cost is only slightly more than one-third the $900 million price of the prison hospital California is building in southeast Stockton.

In his national address Tuesday, Obama talked about the need to prioritize spending. Surely, taking care of the veterans as we promised is a priority.

For years members of Congress from the Valley have pushed the VA to move the project forward, the latest being yet another letter from Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Stockton. Later this month, Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, a member of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, is to meet with VA Secretary Eric Shinseki on this and other VA issues.

We hope one of the messages Denham delivers is that waiting another four or five years for this much-delayed clinic to open is unacceptable.

The men and women who answered the nation's call didn't make excuses or delay showing up.

They shouldn't have to listen to excuses or put up delays from the nation they served.